www.livemint.com
00
EXCLUSIVE PARTNER
SENSEX 8,325.82 ®
What’s inside
A steep fall in oil prices and the non-usage of some rigs
has put pressure on India’s largest offshore oil drilling
contractor Aban Offshore Ltd’s ability to repay loans tak-
en from banks. The firm may have to reschedule some
portion of the Rs15,968 crore of debt that is due to ma-
ture this year and the next.
LEADING THE NEWS
After the attacks
on the Sri Lan-
kan team in La-
hore, watching
cricket in the
subcontinent
will not be the same, says
Anil Padmanabhan. >P5
***
Beleaguered domestic carri-
ers are paring the salaries
of pilots and engineers, giv-
ing West Asian carriers an
opportunity to tap talent
from India. >P2
CORPORATE NEWS
Nariman Point last week
got tagged as the world’s
sixth most expensive office
location, but the business
district has been reeling
under falling rentals, rising
vacancies.
***
>P8
A survey shows some Indi-
an firms want to implement
flexible benefits in order to
retain their best talent. >P8
QUICK EDIT
Musharraf and alienation
A s always, Pervez Mushar-
raf has got it wrong. The
former president of Pakistan,
on a visit to India these days,
created ripples while speaking
to a Delhi audience on Satur-
day night.
The general reportedly
made a comment that one of
the reasons for terrorism in
India was the sense of alien-
ation felt by Muslims in the
country. He received a rebuke
from a leader present on the
occasion. Musharraf was told
that India’s Muslims could
solve their own problems.
The point may be hard to
understand for an individual
Mint is also available for Rs4.75 with Hindustan Times under a combo offer
New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh*, Pune*
NIFTY 2,620.15 ®
>P6
MONEY MATTERS
The US will rule world mar-
kets this week and it will be
worth watching the dollar
index, which is showing
signs of peaking, says
Vipul Verma. >P15
***
Can RBI be
more bold and
cut the policy
rate to zero? It
can, through the
back door, says
Tamal Bandyo-
padhyay. >P6
ECONOMY AND POLITICS
The current UPA govern-
ment will leave behind the
largest-ever combined fis-
cal deficit in India’s histo-
ry, and with it, a series of
missed opportunities to ad-
vance administrative and
economic reforms. >P4
VIEWS
The US and China have
acted aggressively to fight
the financial crisis. But that
may not work in the long
run unless the basic eco-
nomic models of the two
nations are rejigged. >P22
ELECTION SURVEY
Ahead of the polls, Mint
will publish the results of a
nationwide survey by Mar-
keting and Development
Research Associates on
factors that could influence
voter preferences. The six-
part series begins Tuesday.
who as a senior Pakistani mili-
tary leader believed that Kash-
mir could be wrested from In-
dia by force of arms. One can
be sure that such wrong-head-
ed notions had a role to play
in the support to terrorism in
Jammu and Kashmir. In hind-
sight, is it any surprise that
the Kashmir “problem” could
not be solved while he was at
the helm of affairs in Pakis-
tan?
His remarks should not be
viewed as those of an individ-
ual alone. He comes from an
institution that refuses to be-
lieve that Jammu and Kashmir
is a part of India.
Monday, March 9, 2009 Vol.3 No.58 Rs. 3.
24 PAGES
Q&A:Kishore Biyani on
the future of retailing >7
MONEY MATTERS: The mutual funds
that weathered the storm >20-21
THE NATIONAL AGENDA: Pratap Bhanu
Mehta on creating a credible state >23
DOLLAR Rs51.69 ® EURO Rs65.76 ® GOLD Rs15,395 ® OIL $44.85 ®
DEMAND BRIDGE NDA EQUATIONS
Allies may gain as
Tata Nano BJD dumps BJP
may take
B Y L IZ M ATHEW &
U LLEKH N .P .
························· Only 2 women
NEW DELHI
in Left Front’s
N ot only is the decision of
Bengal list
Pune route
the Biju Janata Dal, or
BJD, to snap ties with the
Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP,
a setback to the Hindu nation- B Y R OMITA D ATTA
alist party’s poll fortunes and romita.d@livemint.com
the prime ministerial aspira- ·····················
tions of L.K. Advani, it is also a KOLKATA
RAMESH PATHANIA/MINT
Auto maker weighs a
new assembly line on
leg up for the third political al-
ternative being cobbled by the
Left.
T he Left Front, which
has been pushing for
the reservation of one-
land leased till recently A diminished BJP would now third of the seats in Par-
to Mercedes-Benz to find it more difficult to resist liament for women, has
pressure from its alliance part- fielded only two women
boost production ner in Bihar, the Janata Dal out of 42 candidates in
(United), or JD(U), to settle for West Bengal for the Lok
B Y S UDHA M ENON fewer parliamentary seats than Sabha elections.
sudha.m@livemint.com what it had contested in 2004. In 2004, the Left Front
························· Chief minister Nitish Kumar had fielded five women
PUNE has put off any announcement from the state, known as
T he country’s biggest
auto maker, Tata Motors
Ltd, is considering set-
ting up a new assembly line for
the Nano in Pune, seeking to
Big ambitions: Tata Nano.
be able to produce enough of
on the seat sharing until after
the festival of Holi on Wednes-
day.
On Sunday, a day after he
ended the 11-year-old alliance
a staunch Leftist bastion,
and three of them won.
But this time, it has re-
tained only two of the
three women who had
scale up production to meet the cars at its Pantnagar plant with the BJP, the main opposi- won in 2004.
anticipated demand for the in Uttarakhand. Top officials tion party at the Centre, Orissa Both candidates—Jyo-
Rs1 lakh small car that launch- are concerned enough to con- chief minister and BJD chief tirmoyee Sikdar and Su-
es on 23 March. Bookings for sider supplementing produc- Naveen Patnaik signalled that shmita Bauri—are from
the so-called “people’s car”, tion with an additional assem- he was not averse to joining the Communist Party of
billed as the world’s cheapest, bly line in Pune, said two per- the so-called Third Front, the India (Marxist), or CPM,
open in the second week of sons familiar with the situation non-BJP, non-Congress politi- the Left Front’s largest
April. who didn’t want to be named. cal grouping.
The move comes amid wor- TURN TO PAGE 3®
ries that Tata Motors may not TURN TO PAGE 3® TURN TO BACK PAGE ®
Infosys bucks
trend, absorbs
all offered jobs
B Y P OORNIMA M OHANDAS
poornima.m@livemint.com
·························
BANGALORE
I ndia’s second largest soft-
ware services provider by
revenue, Infosys Technologies
Ltd, says it has completed ab-
sorbing all 20,000 engineering
students who graduated last
year and to whom it had made
job offers on campus.
The induction process was
delayed by several months be-
cause of the global economic
crisis that deepened last year,
forcing overseas clients to pare
technology budgets and delay
projects in an attempt to cut
spending.
Infosys inducted the new
graduates in batches into its
training programme starting
June 2008 and finished the
process by the end of Febru-
ary, company officials said.
Typically, companies recruit
engineering students in the
November-January period
through the campus place-
ment process. Students pass
out in June and join these
firms for work in June-August.
Tata Consultancy Services
Ltd, the country’s biggest soft-
ware services provider, and
No. 3 Wipro Technologies are
yet to complete the induction
TURN TO PAGE 3®